Fri. & Sat., Jan. 11 & 12

N & J downstairs playing 'fort'.

N, upstairs, took this picture of J downstairs.

This is a picture of N doing the artwork on our quilt squares for this year; there could be M-A-N-Y times in the future that I am especially grateful she inherited the creative gene....

Here is the project, completed. (I did the handwriting.) N did the green one, too, but its fabric was far less cooperative, and both her work and mine, on that square, left some to be desired ... so why post a picture of it, eh?? :)

N's next project, she is EXTREMELY excited about. It is a 'challenge' for Brickmasters members only (Yes, Lego.) It's to come up with a bad guy for their Bionicle story this year. It was of special interest to Natasha because she has already created an original 'bad guy' from the Bionicle pieces; its name is Psychoraptor. lol For the challenge, entrants have to not only submit color pictures of their guy, they also have to write an essay (no more than 400 words), explaining some details about their character's 'personality', any special powers he has, etc. Seriously, Natasha just took off on this completely on her own. Her essay is about 160 words, all hand-written, and she accepted my editing, re-wrote it including the edits, and is now 3/4 of the way through typing it. (blink, blink) Wow. Words she spelled correctly that surprised me include "trespasser, gross, about, and quite". I'm also impressed that she used the dictionary to look up the spelling of 'catch'. However, since she was looking up 'cach' she didn't find it.... Aah, the frustrations of dictionaries. Neither Jeremy nor I were available for consultation during all this work she did, so it is really an interesting development!!! Hey word: "development"! :)

After two days of my back (the recurring pinched nerve problem, from when we moved in July) causing me more pain than it has in the entire month that my back has been out-of-whack, and even after a trip to the chiropractor, in which he was unable to get that vertebra back into proper alignment, after Bible study on Thursday night Jeremy did for me that back-pop thing where the taller, stronger person wraps his arms around the shorter person who has his/her hands on opposite shoulders, and then it's "Breathe in," "Breathe out," and then a big lift/squeeze...? There were three HUGE pops that even Jeremy felt against his breastbone, and I am a NEW WOMAN! I can dry my hands, pour milk & juice, cut my food, wash my hair, set the table, answer the phone, hang clothes, and do a myriad of other everyday tasks without pain!!!!! I feel fifteen years younger than I have been feeling. In addition, every time I turn my neck I no longer feel the urge to attempt, yet again, to get it to pop!

Friday morning I started a monstrous pork roast for supper, so supper was basically covered. Therefore, in my 'free time' I made a couple cards! Now THAT is something I don't get to do every day!!!! It was so relaxing and fun. N & J played outside and Lego'd most of yesterday. Then, during J's nap (when I was crafting), N was sweet to do the quilt squares. Jeremy took yesterday off and played video games a lot; he hasn't felt great the past couple days, almost like he's fighting something. Then in the evening we played Boggle! :)

I have a funny to report. N was feeding the dogs. "I'll take this food to Kiana and she'll be all fed up! And I think Jabba wants to be fed up too!"

A positive, exciting, productive Men's Meeting took up Jeremy's Saturday morning, and he worked the rest of the day (since he took of Friday and half of Thursday, planning to work all day today).

Yesterday I had a feeling in my right ear like I had a big, painful zit forming just inside my ear. By bedtime the pain was VERY bad, and in all my fiddling of it (Picture an 18-mo.-old with an ear infection ... cantankerous and pulling/scratching at the ear constantly - that was me.) I discovered a spot behind my ear, at the top of the soft indent just behind the ear lobe, where there is a pea-size hard, round ball. ??? Never felt THAT before. In order to get some relief I did take a big dose of Ibuprofin, which I hate to do. It warded off the pain for about five hours, but all through the night the ear was awakening me (!! significant!), and even before my alarm went off I decided I'd had enough of this ridiculous amount of pain. My concern ("hypochondria") was very high, and FIRST THING after getting out of bed I took N & J with me, at their request, to the clinic. (Well, we did get dressed, but took breakfast with us to eat in the car!

Boy am I glad I did. The doctor said that this time my ear infection is an outer-ear infection (as opposed to middle- and inner-ear infections, like I usually get), and the pea-size ball behind my ear is a swollen lymph node, a sign of a very serious infection. That, along with my great amount of pain were signals to her that this infection has gone into the tiny ear BONES! Grrrreat. Today I got these three different kinds of high-powered antibiotics which will kill the bacteria (everywhere... :*( ) in my ear BONES: a 'hip shot', pills, and ear drops. The shot was $80! The visit was $65, and the Rx's added up to $30; thankfully one of the Rx's came in a generic I had to pay only $4 for. argh While waiting for the Rx's we ate our lunch at Taco Bell. Five hours and almost $200 later, my pain has continued at a high level all day ... 8 out of that scale to 10. I am finally getting a bit of relief after pumping my body full of pain killers and antibiotics this evening. I was unable to cook supper, and since Jeremy wasn't able to do it either, we ate breakfast shakes for supper!. Nothin' wrong with that; actually, it was a nice. No one was very hungry, so it fit the bill.

We shall see how we fare, healthwise, tomorrow, on our hardest day of the week. I think I forseeeeee ... afternoon naps.